If You Come Only Once, You've Been Cheated: A Post-Structuralist Examination of the Hegemony of the "Pure" and "Sordid"(a Poor Mojo's Classic)

by lolly@biperson.com (annotations by the PMjA Staff)

[As August 2008 marks the close of our seventh year of weekly publication, we shall spend this month enjoying "the blast from the past" with selections from Poor Mojo's Almanac(k): Year One. Please, enjoy! —Your Giant Squid, Editor-in-Chief, PMjA]

Spum[2] guzzling hose hogs[3] who can't live without a white boy's jimmy or a black boy's cactus[4] in their mouths 24 hours a day! (We have to punish them when they swallow instead of taking it on the face!)

This piece was submitted to us several months ago. As the author failed to include all necessary information (such as type of submission, postal address, etc.), we were loathe to immediately judge it, for while this is a fine rant, and an interesting—if cryptic—piece of fiction, it's hardly what I'd call a poem (although both Tom and the Giant Squid held that its attention to language and formal playfullness were both sufficient to make it a sturdy little verse.) Our questions to the author went unanswered and so we ultimately chose to publish the piece, with our addenda, in lieu of allowing it to slip back into obscurity. At the time of publication, the author (or authors) were still not responding. Let it be known, lolly@biperson.com, that we owe you one beer.

1. We found this choice of spelling for "come" interesting to say the least. To the best of our knowledge, the accepted spelling of "come" (meaning "to ejaculate") in the porn industry is "cum." Was the alternate spelling chosen in order to foreground the "come" vs. "cum" pun? Or, as I suspect, was this spelling meant to avoid the casual reader confusing "cum" (vernacular English meaning "to ejaculate") with cum (Latin meaning "with") and thus mistake this piece to be a treatise on Latin grammar? Fritz, in his dissent to this interpretation, noted that I was being "a real lame ass." To you Fritz, I say, eat shit and die.

2. Searching both standard and "slang" dictionaries, we failed to find any listing for the word "spum." As such, it appears to be a neologism—although Tom suggested it might just be a misspelling of "spume" (referring to the scummy sea foam that gathers at the shores,) we prefer to see it as a nifty portmanteau, combining the verbish immediacy of "cum" with the "legions-of-soldiers" quality of "sperm" and the all-encompassing, colloidal coating of "spooge." It's short—the word itself is a brief ejaculation from the lips—and succeeds where "sperm", "spooge", "cum" and even "jizz" fail (The first being too medical; the second too long in the vowel, and thus robbed of the energetic impact one might desire; the third speaks of ejaculate as a single thing unto itself [rather than foregrounding the fact that it is composed of many, tiny, ardently living things]; and the fourth, though powerful in its sibilant "z"s and in-your-face immediacy, is unfortunately almost devoid of a truly sexual component. "Jizz" might just as well refer to the spray from a squirt-pistol, or a carbonated soft drink.)

3. Again, our research failed to turn up any "legitimate" definition for the phrase "hose hog." But, the HarperCollins Reference Library Dictionary of American Slang, edited by Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D. notes, in passing, that it is rare, but attested, that "hose" may be used to refer to the penis. That being the case, then we can easily parse "hose hog," taking "hog" to refer to one who greedily devours some desirable commodity, as hogs are purported to devour their feed (as of press time, we were unable to verify that hogs actually greedily devour anything. Vladimir and Isabel, our office swine, both comport themselves admirably when presented with a wide array of comestibles.)

4. We could find no other instances in which "cactus" has been used to refer to the penis (as we are fairly sure is being done in this case.) This may, in fact, be another new coinage. Please also see note 8 below.

5. Among the attested usages of "cooter" are "A fresh-water tortoise (Pseudemus concinna) of the southern United States and northern Mexico" and a city in Missouri, located at 36.04697 N, 89.80971 W with a population (as of the 1990 census) of 451 (187 housing units) and a rough area of 0.7 sq km. We doubted either of these was salient. Digging deeper, we also found that "Cooter" Davenport was the name of a popular character on the Dukes of Hazzard (1979-1985) television series. "Cooter" is an auto-mechanic and populist philosopher, played by Ben Jones. Jones later went on to represent Georgia in Congress from 1988-1992, finally losing his seat to Republican Newt Gingrich in the 1994. Of course, this usage also seems ill-fit to the phrase "Delicate, oriental beauties with tight cooters" (A "tight" actor or character? A "tight" turtle? A "tight" city? A "tight" Congressman?) Tom, who was raised in Georgia, also noted that "cooter" can refer to the vagina. A brief search for the term "cooter" using a popular search engine lends disturbing credence to Tom's perspective.

6. Another new coinage, to the best of our knowledge. The exact sexual posture being suggested is unclear, although the Squid offered several quite graphic suggestions, four of which included visual aids which forced Tom and Morgan to leave the room.

7.??? While the punning component of this metaphor is clear, the actual thing signified is, at best, muddied. "Nuts," we know, is common vernacular for the testicles, and "snicker" may, after a small leap, be understood to be the penis itself (on account of its cursory similarity to the quasi-phallic candy bar of the same name), but referring to ejaculation (or ejaculate) as "caramel" is, assuredly, a deeply disturbing image. Dave's urologist suggests that, in the case that you or your loved's ejaculate ever has an appearance at all similar to caramel (in viscosity, color or taste), that he contact a medical doctor immediately

8. We, too, wonder why, in this paragraph (or, considering the question as to the formal intent of the piece, perhaps verse) tacos (a Mexican dish) are being associated with Texas (a US state in, at best, uncomfortable cohabitation with Nuestro Amigo del Sur.) This curiosity is further complicated by the fact that this is all in reference to latinas—which we take to be a rather loose reference to persons of Spanish-speaking decent in general. Spanish is spoken, as either a primary or secondary language, in over 30 countries world wide. Why specifically associate this ethnic sub-class with Mexico/Texas (perhaps this deserves a new coinage of our own; Texico?), and so clumsily? Keeping in mind note 4, we wondered about the overall leaning towards the Southwest in this piece. "Is this South West 'sexy'?" The Squid asks, and we wonder: Is it?

10. The Giant Squid found this passage especially delightful—but why? Each time he came across this phrase, he again succumbed to great, roaring peals of cephalopodic laughter. When asked to explain, he kept simply repeating "You could not understand. Could not understand," as he wiped tears from around his terrible eyes.

11. Some (Fritz, Morgan, Erik, the Squid, Tom and Sang Hsien, to name a few) have suggested that engaging in an academic parsing of a clear piece of junk-text, and thus elevating it well beyond its station, is an exhausted mode for forging humor. Others (Notably The Squid, Morgan, Fritz, Tom, the Squid again, Sang Hsien, and the Squid speaking through a hand puppet) have indicated that this whole investigation and exploration were and are simply a thin excuse to read, wallow in and publish a misogynistic text clearly aimed at the prurient interests.

To these detractors, and all other, we kindly invite you to suck our big hairy nuts, hardcore, baby. They (and possibly you) are quite evidently spum guzzling hose hogs, who might well benefit from a lumberjack-style knuckly throat job with our large jimmy cacti. Perhaps you are an oriental beauty, perhaps a buxom chocolate-wench, and even possibly the latin lovely taco stuffed with big knobbed teacher skirts—nonetheless, you're cordially invited to choke on it, ass-fuck. Thank you and goodnight